


Greif

by RumourWrites



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Character Death, Hurt No Comfort, but not really, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-13 00:01:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29767632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RumourWrites/pseuds/RumourWrites
Summary: The grief of losing a family member changes even the strongest of people. Two years later, the BAU get a chance to avenge the death of their friend.
Relationships: The BAU Team & Spencer Reid
Comments: 20
Kudos: 38





	1. Greif

The air in the office didn’t feel the same anymore. It felt colder and clinical to JJ. It reminded her of when she helped her parents move out of the house that she grew up in. When all the furniture, trinkets, and family air looms had been removed from their resting places, carpets stripped, and aged wallpaper peeled off per an agreement with the new owners. What had once been a home, a sanctuary now was merely a creaky old house. The office no longer held the warmth of the family for her. She very much doubted that it ever would again. 

For a long time, it hurt to walk out of the elevator doors and see the bullpen. To see his desk sitting empty, and even worse when the time eventually came that a new agent came along and emptied his belongings and took his space. That felt like someone dragging a knife through her heart. The pain was unbearable. 

But with all wounds, time healed her. But she had emotional nerve damage. Sometimes, out of the blue, she would see something, a ghost of a memory about him, and it would tear her in two. And, despite months and years of learning how to deal with the grief, she would be right back to where she started. Feeling unbelievably alone, lost in a dark world without her best friend. This morning it came in the form of a gangly college student stumbling his way through an interaction with a pretty barista at the coffee shop she visited before work. She couldn’t even wait to make her order. Tears stung her eyes as she dashed back to her car. 

Of course, one of the things that made it bearable was her team. They all had their own coping mechanisms but the one thing that united them all was each other. They always had each other. And work. Work was always a distraction. The constant onslaught of evil that they dealt with rarely let up enough to let them wallow in the grief of their loss. 

JJ knew she was lucky that she had her home life to keep her stable enough. She couldn’t completely shut down because she had Henry and Michael and even Will to look after. And they would look after her too. Her kids reminded her so much of him, Henry in particular. It was bittersweet. It made her heartache, but she was always immensely grateful that his love for learning and his unwavering kindness would be carried on by her son. As long as that was true it as like a little bit of him was still alive.

Despite what anyone could have predicted Garcia did not take the loss the hardest. Helping other people had always been her technique to keep her head above water. And that’s exactly what she did. She protected the team with newfound fearlessness. She did more work with her support group. She adopted a second cat. Distraction from her pain was created by alleviating the pain of others. One day she might crack from the losses in her life, the stress of her job, the constant emotional damage. But until that point, she was fine to go on pretending she felt like the ray of sunshine she projected externally.

Morgan took it hard. He had lost his little brother. Part of him was missing forever. At first, he refused to believe it. Begged to see the body, grasping at the childish belief that it had all been made up and one day he was going to walk through the BAU doors alive and well. Someone had messed up, it wasn’t him, it wasn’t the kid. It couldn't be, it wouldn't be. He had survived so much. Kidnapping, held hostage by a religious cult, anthrax poisoning. He wasn’t supposed to be the one to go. Morgan had realised a long time ago that there was someone upstairs keeping an eye on the kid. It wasn’t supposed to be him. The coroner had warned Hotch that the state of the body was not pretty. It was burned to what was described as the point of indistinguishable. They could only get an ID because of the FBI credentials that had inexplicably survived and the use of dental records. The team had been forbidden from seeing it.

The ordeal had broken Emily. They’d never quite gotten over the whole Doyle situation. Plans had been made to have dinner at Rossi’s. Something to smooth over the wound her departure had created and her sudden reappearance had ripped back open. He’d never made it. She carried the unbearable weight of what she’d thought about him that night. Stubborn, childish, rude, selfish. The thought that he had died thinking the same things about her. 

It was the loss of a son for Hotch and Rossi. An agony Rossi had felt before and never thought he would feel again. He almost considered retirement. But, just as Hotch did, he threw himself back into his work. A whole book dedicated to his honour. The Italian knew that everyone died eventually, but words continued to hold their power forever. It felt like an odd poetic justice to him. Maybe, the decision to donate all the proceeds to causes he would have liked, innovative Schizophrenia research initiatives, scholarships for disadvantaged children, could have been seen as overkill. But, he was just trying to do what was right, what the kid would have done. 

Almost three years had passed since a pair of the Metropolitan Police Department had darkened their doorstep asking to speak to Aaron Hotchner, hands wrenched together at their fronts with downcast eyes. This was the kind of posture that the whole team had seen before. It was what they used when talking to a victims family. The minute JJ had spotted them she knew something was off. Bad. She wasn’t the only one. Unconsciously, the whole team banded together hovering uselessly by the side of the office's kitchenette in an attempt to catch the best glimpse of the conversation happening within Aaron Hotchners corner office. Even Rossi uncharacteristically slinked out of his office to join the speculation. 

_“A case?”_ Morgan sloughed on the Formica kitchenette countertop nonchalantly offered to the gang of profilers around him, raising a dark eyebrow.

_“No, they all come through me.”_ JJ had clipped back. Despite her relative promotion within the team, she still handled all incoming cases. Maybe, just maybe if it was an emergency it would go directly to Hotchner, but that would be coming from heads of police departments or higher-ups. Not the two remorseful beat cops who somehow smuggled themselves into their offices. Something was wrong. Something was really wrong. And where was Spencer?

They found out soon enough. The two officers left Aaron in his office, never meeting the eyes of the agents within the office as they exited. The formation by the kitchenette slowly dispersed back to desks and offices, leaving Jennifer standing stirring a coffee she didn’t want, with a bubbling feeling of unease growing at the pit of her stomach that she couldn’t get rid of. As much as she tried she couldn’t manage to keep her eyes away from Aarons office window. Through the horizontal slats of his blind, she could see the man sitting unnaturally still at his desk, face drawn into the taught grimace usually reserved for the most stressful cases. JJ decided to make her approach.

Announcing her arrival with a gentle knock, she caught her first glimpse of the worryingly pale unit chief. His face remained the same emotionless mask but it was in his eyes you could see the panic, the pain. 

_“Sir, did they have a case for us?”_ She knew they didn’t. It took Aaron a second to acknowledge JJ standing in his doorway, never letting his eyes meet hers.

_“No.”_ He hesitated for a second too long eyes darting around the room before coming to rest on JJ again. _“Gather the team. I need to talk to everyone.”_

_“Is everything…”_

_“It’s Reid. JJ. He's gone.”_

The next few hours, days, weeks even, of JJ’s life where blurry after that point. For the whole team. They all knew the different stages of grief, had felt and worked with them before. But nothing had prepared them for the shock of this, not for the suddenness of it, not for the finality of it. 

Shaking her head, JJ pulled herself out of the dark reverie. She had a job to do. Hotch had sent out a mass text to the team in the early hours to let them know they had a big case coming through, everyone's attention was vital. Lives were at stake.


	2. Metro

It was an incident on the Metro. Technical issues delayed a train for some time in the middle of a tunnel. What happened down there is unclear to those who searched to identify what had led to the death of Spencer Reid. Despite the buzz of a Friday night filling many trains with commuters returning home from work or making the journey to the first of many bars, only Reid and the assailant had boarded that particular carriage. Later, when questioned witnesses, residing in neighbouring carriages reported hearing shouts. A call that someone was FBI and to drop all weapons might have been heard. Maybe, a fight? Gunshots, unclear from who. 

Then came a fire. At first small, but once the train lurched along the track once again ready to complete the ten-minute journey to Union Station it grew. Eventually, commuters pulled the fire alarm bringing the train to a stop yet again. But by that point, it was much too late.

From months of piecing broken, burned and painful puzzle pieces together the team learned that there was some kind of explosives device carried on board. Planned to be detonated when the train sat in the tunnel directly under the busy Union Station in DC. Potential for hundreds of deaths. Thousands injured. It was the closest to terrorist caused disaster that the USA had since 9/11. 

Planned to the millisecond. 

Contingency upon contingency. 

The only thing they hadn’t been able to plan for was Spencer Reid strolling onto their carriage, clutching a bottle of supermarket red wine, ready to swallow his pride and forgive Emily and JJ at Rossi’s cooking lesson. 

No one could say for sure how Reid did it. Unarmed, physically unimposing Reid. Somehow, he managed to get the device, disguised in its gym bag, off the train. One agent from the terrorism task force proposed that he had managed to override the emergency exit, throwing the device and the detonator out the train doors before manually shutting the doors again. The story felt surreal to the team. It was something you could see Bruce Willis pulling off in an eighties action movie. Not skinny, introverted Doctor Reid. 

It was unclear if it was in the scuffle of getting the device off the train or after, but at some point, the assailant had managed to fire a shot into Reid’s shoulder. The wound would have practically immobilised him. 

A second shot nicked a gas canister on the bottom of the train, starting a small fire directly underneath them. A small fire that aided by the eventual movement of the train grew. It was beginning to lick at neighbouring carriages by the time the fire department had evacuated all passengers on the train. By the time they discovered the two bodies at the centre of the carriage, well, they were lucky to be able to identify them at all. 

It was an image that had haunted JJ. Spencer lying on the plastic floor of the train, bleeding out, feeling his surroundings getting dangerously hot, knowing he was going to die alone down there. Unable to think his way out of the situation. Countless nights she had awoken in a cold sweat from dreams of trying to pry the doors of the train open and drag his limp body out. She could never save him, never strong enough to do it. 

Hundreds of innocent lives saved. It didn’t even make the front-page news. The fire on the train was passed off with the excuse of faulty wiring. An all too common problem on the DC Metro system.   
Witnesses were told some concocted tale explaining the loud gunshots and shouting as work being carried out on some of the undergrounds tracks. The device discovered at the side of the tracks went unannounced to the majority of the American public, just as anthrax and a multitude of other undiscovered threats to their freedom did. Eventually, the CIA traced the failed attack to an emergent terrorist cell thought to be operating in Eastern Europe - The Western School of Freedom.

Spencer Reid’s headshot got nailed to the wall of fallen agents. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another Chapter! It's short but it's written which is actually really impressive for how hard I find it to write stuff.
> 
> I think I might have a half-decent plan for where this is going but stay tuned to see how long that lasts. Let me know what you think?


	3. Funeral

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Funeral of Spencer Reid

The funeral of Spencer Reid was a unique event. Home in his native Las Vegas, his Mom insisted it was the cemetery his Grandfather was buried in decades before. They had been close, apparently. Emily always found that after death was when you found out about all these little concealed whispers of a persons’ life. Little, concealed, unimportant things that just added up to this whole person you used to love. It left a bitter-sweet taste in her mouth.

Nobody was too sure going into the event who exactly would turn up. Spencer was always a private person, preferring evenings alone with a tower of books over a packed social life. But the service was far from empty. The team couldn’t place everyone. People from past and secret lives that the team weren’t privy to. Professors, childhood friends, people he had touched in his thirty years on the planet, a sparse smattering of the little family that he had. 

Amongst the sizable crowd of mourners, a few familiar faces stood out to the team. A blonde actress from a case they once worked, a gangly young man with dark hair and an angular face that Morgan could have sworn he’d seen Reid get drinks with in New Orleans. Of course, his Mom, accompanied by two hospital orderlies. Her short blonde hair sat in an unruly fashion from her hands constantly tugging at tufts of it with her bony hands. Gideon, keeping a low profile at the back of the crowd. 

Keeping in line with what everyone had assumed Spencer would have wanted, the service was strictly non-religious. No priest reading him his last rights, no blessings and prayers for his decent to the afterlife. He didn’t believe in any of that, and it would be an insult to the way he lived his life to force it upon him in death. Instead, they scattered his ashes in a cemetery, each saying their own silent goodbye to the young genius. Morgan closed out the service, he could feel the sweat beading up on his forehead in the Vegas heat. Wiping at it with the dark sleeve of his suit jacket, he wasn’t sure if he could do this. The only thing that kept his legs from crumbling beneath him as he walked out to address the crowd was his desperate desire to not let the kid down one last time. 

“Carl Sagan once said that somewhere, _something incredible is just waiting to be known_. I couldn’t think of anything else that would be able to sum up who Doctor Spencer Reid was _.”_ Morgan said. His voice cracked slightly as he said his dead friend's name. “ _S_ pencer was…” He had to take a deep breath to steady himself. “Spencer was someone who believed any and all knowledge was incredible. He, well, you could say he was a hoarder of it. Never, for one minute in Spencer’s life did he stop wanting to understand and know things… _”_

Morgan knew he could never do him justice. Not with the limited time he had. He didn’t have the brainpower to put the right words in the right order to accurately describe who and what Spencer Reid was. He doubted that there was anyone on the planet that could. Rounding up his eulogy he invited the crowd to toast to Spencer’s life and join them at a nearby restaurant to share stories about the kid. The crowd began to slowly disperse, the majority making their way to the restaurant a few blocks down in order to toast to the young Doctor.

A single man was left standing in a dazed state by the photo of Reid marking the site of his final resting place. Spindly fingers dug into his hollow checks and picked at thinned lips. The team who stood observing him from afar as they waited for Reid’s mother to be collected safely and taken back to her hospital, could clearly mark his posture as showing severe emotional distress. Guilt. Regret. Pain. JJ stared at him outright for a few minutes, mulling over the familiarity she felt when she looked at him. Screams shattered her quiet study of the man. Screams of Diana Reid as she broke away from her orderly, charging across the droughted grass between her and the unidentified man.

_“YOU’RE WEAK!”_ The words tore wildly out of Diana’s mouth as she ran. Two things happened very quickly after Diana let out her first yell. The mysterious man whipped his head around, confusion and desperation mixing on his features and Morgan sprinted across space between him and Ms Reid, gently trying to hold her back. JJ and Emily shared an incredulous look with each other both momentarily lost for words.

“YOU’RE WEAK! GET AWAY FROM THERE. GET AWAY FROM HIM. _YOU CAN’T BE HERE_ …YOU CAN’T… _”_

_“_ Diana – _He was my son_ too _…”_ William’s defence came out half-hearted and was ultimately cut short by a frustrated howl from Diana as Morgan refused to let her get any closer to the man, acting as a barrier between the two.

_“_ He was your son until you decided he wasn’t. _You left him_. You left him with me! I begged. _I BEGGED you to take him Will_. He was a child; he wasn’t supposed to have to look after me! Not because I couldn’t. Not because you wouldn’t. Will, you left him with me. Alone.” Diana screeched. Williams face all but crumpled at Diana’s venomous out lash. He meekly tried to reason with her, but the woman refused to listen. Tears tracked down both the bereaved parent's faces. 

_“_ He was double the man you’d ever be when he was ten. _When he was ten!”_ Diana spat the words out with all the energy she could muster, as she slowly gave way to violent sobs. “You don’t get to miss him. You don’t get to miss him now. You weren’t here. _You weren’t ever here.._.”

The orderlies had made their way over to Diana and Morgan now, taking control of the grieving woman. Gently, between the two orderlies and Morgan, they managed to walk Diana over to the car that had arrived for them. As they slowly marched across the dry grass Morgan took a long look over his shoulder at the ashen Mr Reid, left standing, red-eyed by the grave of his only child.

Later, corralled into a corner booth of a dimly lit Vegas restaurant the team sat reminiscing about their beloved genius. They laughed at stories of how Hotch and Reid first met, remembering the fresh-faced, awkward young man that had first tailed behind Gideon into his office, barely past his teen years. At first, Hotch had been sceptical of Gideons decision to mentor the young man, he didn’t believe he had the grit needed to survive in the business. In the short time he meekly stood behind Gideon, the kid had managed to solve a coded letter sitting discarded on Aarons desk. A letter that the BAU had dedicated a whole team of agents to solving for weeks by that point.

Rossi was engrossed in the middle of a tale about Spencer connecting with some kid on a case through a piano, which to his amazement the genius picks up how to play through knowing the mathematical theory behind it. Morgan took a minute to take stock of their surroundings. It was late and the patrons of the darkened bar were thinning. Most of the crowd who had come along to pass their condolences and remember their friend had left, leaving the team huddled in their booth. A long bar top sat directly across the table, backing onto a mirrored barback hosting an assortment of hard liquors. Various groups had set up camp in the bar. A few young men sat near the door joking loudly, gearing up for a long night out on the strip to come. Various couples dotted across the bar taking up bar stools and tables, some clearly way past the point of intoxication to be hitting any other spots later in the night.

By the corner of the bar alone nursing a lone scotch sat the cause of Diana Reid’s earlier meltdown. William. He had the posture of a defeated man, crumpled over with his head in his hands. Morgan sat observing the man for a while, as he ordered yet another drink. He wanted to hate the man as Reid had. But despite the fact that he had abandoned his son at a young age, you could see that losing Spencer had wrecked him. He’d lost a whole past with his son, and now the future too. 

Clumsily, the ageing man spilt the drink placed in front of him by the barkeeper. It took him a few stupefied seconds to realise the mistake. He stumbled off the tall bar stool, shaky hands wiped at the dark stain on his suit shirt. At this, it appeared William had made the decision to leave, stumbling towards the teams’ booth in his mission to evacuate the bar. The graceless, gangly hobble distantly reminded Morgan of hist lost friend. Looks-wise, William was a lot like his son, all sharp, fine angles and a willowy figure. A knot formed within Morgan’s throat when he noticed this.

Garcia, Emily and JJ were in the middle of a spirited conversation about Reid’s original sartorial choices when William began to pass the table. Voices suddenly hushed and eyes awkwardly averted from the drunken figure passing them by. William glanced at them quickly, the expression plastered across his face unreadable. Morgan could have sworn that he laughed at what the girls were saying.

The barkeeper was trying to catch William’s attention as he was leaving, holding his discarded suit jacket that he had torn off after spilling his drink, but the man had already left the bar. Morgan took the opportunity to hop out of his place in the booth, quickly grabbing William’s coat and chasing after the grieving man. Morgan was in two minds about showing any kindness to this man, but it was clear he was struggling with the loss. It was the right thing to do and despite the fact he would have pretended it wasn’t, it was the thing Reid would do.

_“Mr Reid!”_ Morgan called after him. Bursting out of the bar's entrance, Morgan whipped his head around trying to identify what direction the man had stumbled off in. The warm Vegas night air swelled around him. A few meters down the block he spotted William drunkenly craning into a taxi drivers window trying to explain directions to his home. He straightened up when he caught sight of Morgan, raising a quizzical eyebrow at the man perusing him.

_“_ You forgot your jacket, in the bar? I just, I thought you might need it. _”_ Morgan sounded unsure of himself. William nodded in recognition of what was happening, taking a few steps towards Morgan to retrieve the forgotten suit jacket. They both shared an awkward nod and William mumbled thanks before he turned away and began to walk back down the block.

After a few steps down the street, William turned back to Morgan, this time holding his head in his hands, scratching at his wrinkling cheek roughly with his fingers. He opened his mouth as if to say something and then abruptly shut it. He looked conflicted about talking to his sons’ friends. It wasn’t until Morgan turned to go back to his team that William gained the courage.

_“_ It was my Dad _.”_ William called back. Morgan turned back to face the man when he hurt the words, crinkling his face in confusion.

_“Huh?”_ Genuine confusion colour Derek's tone.

_“His socks._ My dad used to wear his like that. Crazy patterns, never matching them. I don’t know why. He, uh, he used to take Crash – Spencer – after school when Diana and I both had work. He would take him to the see the Greyhound races, let him put a dollar on a hound, have a corndog, that kind of thing. I guess it wasn’t really a great place for a little kid to hang out but, I don’t know, they both seemed to like it." A small, crooked smile crept onto Williams face remembering Spencer and his Grampa. "My Dad, uh, he always had an in, you know, always knew who was fixing a race. He was a bit of a swindler, a real Vegas man through and through. Crash couldn’t work out why his Grampa always seemed to win. Anyways, one day Crash asks him Grampa how come you always win big and I never do. Said it was _a statistical improbability_.” William mimed quotation marks at the end of this. Both men let out a small chuckle. 

“I guess he told him it was all in the socks. His good luck charm. From that day on Crash was so, so determined that he wouldn’t wear matching ones. _He was going to be as lucky as his Grandpa_."William didn’t look up from the smooth, grey sidewalk once while relaying this information. A shiny brogue kicked at some dust. Hands stuffed shamefully in his pockets. When he did lift his gaze, Morgan could see that tears pricked at his swollen eyes.

_“_ He was a good kid. You should be proud. _”_ Morgan told him.

_“_ Yeah. _I guess I should have been.”_ With that, William swallowed down the thick lump that had formed in the base of his throat, swung his suit jacket over his shoulder and began to pathetically stagger back to the taxi rank. Morgan was left standing watching the man leave, feeling oddly hollow inside.


	4. Lifes Moves On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two years later. Lives move on. The team gets a chance to avenge their friend.

_ Two Years Later. _

_ “ _ So, I guess we can wave goodbye to any weekend plans _?” _ Emily asked scornfully as she passed over the takeaway coffee she had picked up for Morgan on her way into work. The two agents were walking through the busy entrance of the FBI building, Emily’s heeled boots clicking against the marbled entrance floor. 

“Damn I don’t even know why I even make them anymore.” Derek shot back. Despite his annoyance, Morgan couldn’t help but smirk at Prentis’s sour mood. A six am message from Hotch on a Friday had put a pin in the whole teams weekend plans. The message was brief. 

_ Case. Be in by 8 am sharp. No need for a go-bag.  _

So close to receiving a full weekend away from this place, Morgan mused as he prodded the button for the elevator, but yet still so, so far. 

As soon as the doors dinged open at the BAU’s sixth-floor offices, chaos ensued the two agents. The Bullpen was packed with more people than usual, bags, files, various uniforms parading about. The two agents shared a look of confusion as the exited the elevator. Morgan raised an eyebrow as he tried to spot another member of their amongst the mele in front of them. As they passed the threshold of the office Emily managed to lock eyes with a stern-looking JJ, who was currently striding towards the briefing room carrying a stack of files tight to her chest. 

_ “ _ What in the  _ hell  _ is going on _?”  _ Emily was incredulous, trying to take stock of the room in front of her. The hive of frantic activity had all the hallmarks of a team setting up in a new office. She should know, it was something the BAU did on a regular basis. This looked bigger than the FBI though, CIA maybe, she didn’t know for sure. You could never be certain in this line of work.

“I don’t know, but we better go find out _ ,”  _ Morgan said, starting towards the briefing room. Emily trailed slightly behind still taking in the scene within the bullpen with suspicion and wonder.

Aaron was standing by an evidence board examining a photograph that had been pinned against. As Morgan and Prentiss entered the room, he gestured for them to sit, not breaking eye contact with the photograph that had held his attention. Rossi already sat at the head of the table, holding the briefing file haphazardly in one hand examining its contents, a mug of rapidly cooling coffee in the other.

“Alright, I’ll bite,” Emily said with a raised eyebrow. “Is anyone going to explain what is going on  _ out there _ ?”

“Are you referring to the calvary currently setting up shop right in the way of the coffee machine _?”  _ Rossi clucked his tongue in distaste at the interference caused.

_ “ _ CIA, MI6 and Interpol operatives. We’re working with them from this point in _.”  _ Hotch deadpanned to his colleagues. Emily opened her mouth, ready to interject and ask why they would be working together. 

Wasn’t there an international profiling team at the FBI already? Surely, these organisations had much more advanced assets than them? 

_ “ _ We have a limited amount of time and they need the best of the best. We have a situation that is a potential code black threat to domestic US security. If everyone is here and ready, I’d like to get started. We don’t know how much time we have on this one _.”  _ Hotch explained _.  _

With that, he crossed the room to the entrance and briskly gestured for some of the others to enter. Three figures entered the briefing room, at the lead with a spindly elder man dressed in a sharp grey suit. Hotch met his eyes as he entered the room, sharing a grimace and a curt nod.  _ “ _ Everyone, this is Malcolm Fox, Operational Manager at M16. He’s been covering the case up until this point.”

“Thank you very much, Agent Hotchner. I’m not going to waste time with too many introductions or unnecessary details. This is McNamara and Benny, the only other two briefed in on this case.” __ Fox gestured towards a towering, athletic-looking woman and slightly timid young man behind him.  _ “ _ Now, to put it politely we have been absolutely shafted down shit creek here and not a single one of us has a paddle. It is the belief of the circus out there that you are our only hope of salvaging the situation from certain disaster. _ ”  _ Fox spoke in a curt Scottish accent, vaguely threatening to anyone who could hear it. It was as if you could hear the punctuation within everything he said. As he spoke his bloodshot eyes wildly assessed the group of profilers in front of him. 

_ “ _ As of three months ago, we received information that we have a double agent involved with an investigation of a potential terrorist cell group operating across the borders of Northern Africa and most of Western Europe. All ten agents involved work and lives have been compromised. One has been presumed dead for some time now. The rest have gone dark on us _.”  _ Fox continued. At this comment, Fox’s two colleagues stopped their careful evaluation of their surroundings and shared a look of genuine sadness.

“Three months? No offence sir, but why are you calling us in now, if at all? We deal with the behaviour of serial criminals. This seems way out of our ballpark _.”  _ Morgan asked.

“Very astute. Agent Morgan, I believe? I am calling you in now as you say because as of two days ago we received word that the terrorist group is planning to launch an attack on the USA that will make Islamic State look like a middle-aged club. We need to find the mole, evaluate all the information available to us and put a stop to whatever they have planned for you. And maybe, if we are lucky, retrieve some of the officers from wherever the fuck they have disappeared to. Does that sound in your ballpark Agent Morgan? Do we have any other pointless questions to waste our very limited time with?” Fox attacked, never once breaking eye contact with Morgan.

Fox stalked to the back of the briefing room planting himself firmly in a chair. The team's eyes followed his graceful movements in a state of shock. Morgan readied himself to rebuke Fox.

“Perhaps we should get a move on with the details of the assignment.” __ The nervous-looking woman that accompanied Fox into the briefing room said, preventing any further interaction between Morgan and Fox _.  _ She smiled meekly at the agents in the room, hoping to break the tension that overpowered everyone inside.  _ “ _ Fox was right about the lack of time. What we really need from you is your help profiling all the active agents in the field to identify who the mole may be. In the files in front of you, I have compiled as comprehensive information about each agent as possible without blowing their identities.  _ Benny,”  _ She gestured towards the shorter, geekish boy standing beside her __ “has all the logs of check-ins and information passed between spooks, if you have a place for him to set up his laptop?” __

McNamara looked around the room, desperately hoping that she could make-up for the quickfire temper of her boss. As the Case Officer, she was directly responsible for managing the relationships and wellbeing of the agents currently missing in action. The weight of the agents lives - and the lives of hundreds more if they didn’t manage to fix this problem – was threatening to crush her. 

She needed to fix this; she desperately needed the team in front of her to be as good as everyone said they were. Potentially hundreds or thousands of lives hung in the balance. To her great relief, the agents had slowly started to mill over the information in the files she had handed out. She met Aarons eye, who gave her a small nod. Apparently, she was running this thing now. She could do that. She had too. She took a sharp breath to steady herself before relaying all the information she could.

_ “ _ The terrorist group we are investigating has multiple different aliases across the boundaries that they operate and despite their geographical size, from the information received, we believe the group to be formed of one small, tight-knit group of individuals. We can also say with a level of certainty that their core base is situated around the Marrakesh-Safi region of Morocco _.”  _

The team continued pouring across the files, the older Italian gentleman pulled his dark eyebrows together forming an expression of perplexity. McNamara and Benny stood with an air of awkwardness, eyes silently questioning Fox’s silence at the back of the room, who was currently reading a message on his mobile phone with a stressed expression. Silently he rose from his chair and exited the room, gesturing for the other two to continue on his way out. Benny shot an anxious look at McNamara.

Tapping his pen off the wooden desk Ross looked up from the file for the first time.

_ “ _ The group – the Yeni Dunyanin Kor _...”  _ Rossi paused for a second, trying to decide how to pronounce the word on the page in front of him. It contained a much more complicated mix of vowels than his American pallet was used to.

_ “ _ The YDK, Yeni Dunyanin Koruyucular _ …”  _ McNamara interjected quickly with near-perfect pronunciation, hoping she could smooth over the earlier altercation with a helpful supply of information. “It’s Turkish, roughly translates as the protectors of the new world. That seems to be what they know as throughout Western Europe, but we’ve seen them working under names such as the Leaders of Liberty in the United Kingdom or the Western School of Freedom in _..” _

McNamara’s ramblings were cut short by a troubled gasp from Garcia, who was in the middle of helping Benny link his laptop with the rooms presentation system. A pen drive dropped out of her unsteady hand, its plastic coating clicking pathetically off the desk in front of her. The expressions of the whole team of FBI profilers had changed dramatically from that of professional curiosity to something unreadable to the two new recruits within the room. Anger? Yes. But also, fear and sadness. McNamara felt a pang of confusion attack her already unsettled stomach. This was not going to plan. 

_ “... _ t he United States.” McNamara finished uncomfortably. “We can’t be sure what they have planned, but we know it’s going to be catastrophic. Have you heard of them before?”

“They were active in Washington a few years ago,” Hotch said. 

“Supposedly – We’ve actually received no evidence to confirm that the attempted attack was carried out by them. Though they supposedly have been claiming the credit.” McNamara quickly interjected.

“A good friend of ours died in that attack.” Rossi retorted, eyes glued to his desk. McNamara felt as if the wind had been knocked out of her. This was personal for them too now. She studied the grey carpet of the briefing room for a moment before collecting herself.

“Then you already know how important it is to stop them. Let’s get to work.” McNamara said. Nods of agreement passed through the team.

“You said they’d already taken an agent, but they're only presumed dead?” Rossi enquired breaking the moment of silence.

“That’s right., Yes. That would be the Doc. Profile in front of you. The agent was taken three months ago. We received video contact from the YDK to confirm they’d taken them and threatened to kill them if the investigation wasn’t pulled.”

_ “ _ And I’m guessing that MI5 weren’t big on that plan _ ” _

_ “ _ No…” __ McNamara had to swallow down a lump that had formed at the base of her throat, straining to stop tears developing in her eyes.  _ “ _ We haven’t received any evidence to confirm the passing…”

“But you haven’t received anything to say that they're _ alive.”  _ Rossi finished off, surveying the clearly emotionally attached agent. The whole team knew it was especially hard when it was one of your own, and he couldn't help but sympathise with the young McNamara - clearly over her head and feeling responsible. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have so much Uni work so obviously, I have continued to write this instead. Haha. Fuck my drag right?
> 
> Comments are appreciated!


	5. Contemplation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team contemplates the price of sharing information about the missing agent. Revelations are made.

Contemplation

The profiles had been loaded on the screens surrounding the room, minus the one given the moniker Doc. The team of profilers set out methodically working through each case files. Profiling isn’t an exact science – and it was made all the more difficult by not having victimology or physical evidence to help piece the profile together. Reclining back in his chair Rossi absent-mindedly flipped the paper case file back onto the table in front of him. He knew this was going to be a long, long day. 

The team was circling aimlessly already. Hotch and JJ disagreed with Emily that a certain profile was the most aggressive agent and therefore lent themselves to the profile of the traitor. Morgan and Rossi himself had come to a standstill in their debates over the personalities of one agent versus another. They could do this all day and still end up in the same place. They were playing a very dangerous guessing game.

“If this was a normal case _…”_ Rossi started, breaking the concentration of his colleagues around him. “We always start with the victimology.” 

_“_ And in this case, the victim is who _?”_ Emily asked. _“_ I guess, we could say it was Doc. I mean, the mole could have handed in any of the agents, but he chose Doc. Why?”

_“_ Maybe it was location-based – Doc was the agent they had the easiest access to? _”_ Morgan proposed.

_“_ Least attachment to? Even double agents form bonds with their colleagues. Maybe Doc was the one it hurt the least to turn over? _”_ JJ countered.

“Maybe Doc had the most information about the case? McNamara would you be able to get Docs to profile up on the board? " Hotch asked. "We are going to have to dive into his profile and try and figure out why he was the one ratted out. I think that’s our only hope of finding out who’s the mole right now. _”_

"Unfortunately, his profile is classified. The less information about him out there, the better chance of us getting him back," McNamara replied. 

" _Nothing?_ C’mon, We need something to work with here," Morgan interjected, frustration bubbling into his tone.

McNamara bit at her lip uneasily. She was under direct orders from Fox to keep Doc's information as classified as possible. Strictly forbidden from sharing his personal file- name, age, photos, aliases. Fox had warned both McNamara and Benny that this could be the difference between life and death for the Doc and for any loved ones he left behind. Information was more dangerous than weapons. One slip to the wrong person had dire consequences. But, if the team needed information to help solve this, surely she could trust them? Internally, McNamara weighed up the consequences of sharing such information freely. Eventually, she came to her resolve. Fox was not going to be happy with her.

“This was Doc’s first mission with the agency. From what I’ve gained from his case file he was selected because of his speciality skillset. The man was smart, like unbelievably _smart”_ McNamara told.

_“_ A Genius” Benny added quietly from his seat in front of the laptop.

“Did you have a lot of contact with him?” Emily asked, intrigued by Benny’s first major contribution to the group discussion in hours. 

“I process all the reports and comms between agents. His where meticulous. No detail missed. I mean pages upon pages of detailed knowledge, flawlessly fact checked. I mean he knew everything, about everything.” An enthusiastic smile crept onto the young man's face as he talked about his colleague. "A lot of the field agents can be kind of standoffish. Spooks don't trust anyone. But he was, I don't know, cool?"

Sadness soured the young man's voice, moving McNamara to place a comforting hand on his shoulder. Both of them felt the responsibility of their colleague's life clinging to them. Of the lives of thousands more if they couldn't work this out. Frustration, exhaustion, fear. It was all becoming too much for the two agents. Where was Fox? McNamara wondered. He was supposed to be running this.

"Maybe a break for ten? Fresh eyes to attack this with?" Rossi proposed, noticing the moment that had passed between the new agents. Nods of agreement passed through the various agents, who excused themselves to various offices and offered fresh coffee refills. Eventually, it was just Benny and McNamara left in the briefing room.

"You okay?" McNamara asked.

"Yeah, I just... I don't think I can carry on with...." Benny began in a choked voice. McNamara knew that he had respected the missing agent. Saw him as almost an older brother, someone he could share his strange obsessions with obscure scientific facts or geekish TV shows. 

"I get you. Listen, take a break, get a cup of tea or something and we'll work through this. _Together._ I'm going to have a look around and see if I can find Fox." McNamara said, giving him a tight smile that was supposed to be reassuring. Benny returned with a weak nod, before McNamara exited the room, leaving him all alone.

***

Failing to have located Fox, McNamara found herself stood by the wall of fallen agents. Her eyes practically glued to the last hanging portrait. The last few days had left her feeling bone-tired, but shock now reinvigorated her body. The cloud of confusion and loose ends that had plagued her for the last few weeks slowly dissolved as pieces began to click into place. This was why Fox had told her to axe the video. Safety of identity bullshit. _They knew him. He was one of them._

McNamara had only briefly met the missing agent before she had sent him out on his assignment. His unassuming, lanky appearance was not what Hollywood typically attributed as an intelligence agent. But she knew that appearance deceived, and the best agents were the ones you didn’t see coming. From his vague case file, she had pieced together small glimpses into the agent's life. 3 PhD’s, a wealth of exceptional publications and hundreds of hours of fieldwork. Hostage situations, serious crime, terrorism. It was why he had been selected. If they were to build the perfect intelligence agent, it would be him.

He’d been given a pivotal role in their investigation, based in a Berlin pharmaceutical engineering firm they suspected had ties to the YDK. It was more than likely that if there were plans to initiate a biowarfare attack on the USA, there would be some evidence of it here. He was placed there under the cover of a professor completing a PhD in chemical engineering, working in the laboratories as part of his final studies. 

Some agents required weeks of coaching to embody their cover. He barely needed an hour.

The first few months of his assignment were quiet. Trust takes time to build. Eventually, his reports back hinted at suspicions about various lab members. Detailed, impeccably investigated accounts of loading dock workers stealing hundreds of experimental medicines to sell on the black market. Senior lab researchers sabotaging colleagues research for personal gain. A wealth of scandals and salacious gossip spilt out of his reports back. Each morsel logically interpreted and analysed by the author. 

It wasn’t until a year into his assignment when they were all beginning to give up hope that their puzzle could be solved in the Schattiger Wissenschaftsplatz, that a coded message left on a designated answer machine from the Doctor to McNamara and Benny hinted that he had finally made progress.

_Morning Mom,_

_I think we’ve got a bit of a rat problem in the office. Can we have a face to face catch up soon? Ps –Keep an eye on Dad._

_Doc._

It was a common protocol for agents to communicate in plain, unassuming messages that would slide through even the most attentive interference technology. From what they could garner, the doctor had identified the link to the YDK in the lab but needed a secure line to pass the information. A meeting was set for a week after the message was sent. The Doctor never turned up. Months later the video arrived, posted on a message board the group must have identified as compromised.

_“It’s hard_ ” the blonde technician's kind voice mused at her side. McNamara jolted slightly, not having heard the woman approach her. “Losing a friend. It’s hard.” Her bright Fuschia lips formed a sad, empathetic smile when McNamara met her eye. “It gets easier though, in time. I mean, we lost him almost two years ago now. And don’t get me wrong it still hurts. But, now it kind of like, I feel like he’s out there somewhere, watching over me, making me be a better me. And, that makes it easier.” 

McNamara couldn’t meet the Tech’s eyes anymore, guilt overwhelming her. She bit into her lip, fighting the internal battle of right and wrong in her mind. After a moment of contemplation, McNamara heard the clacking of Garcia’s kitten heels start down the hall. A resolve waved over her. She finally knew the right thing to do. 

“Garcia, if there was even the slightest chance you could bring your friend back - Even if it went against all the rules – _would you?”_ McNamara asked.

_“I wouldn’t even think twice.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the nice comments! Love hearing what people think. 
> 
> Also sorry for all the dialogue here but we need to move a story forward in some way.


	6. Resurrection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pieces of the puzzle finally click into place for McNamara and the team.

McNamara strode with a vengeance back to the briefing room, her sudden air of confidence eliciting curious looks of attention from the profilers still hashing out arguments of who was their best suspect. McNamara’s attention was placed on Benny. 

“Pull up all of Doc’s case notes. I want all the reports, messages last communications. The video. We need to show the video too.” She demanded.

“But Fox said we need to protect his identity at all …” Benny began to object, giving McNamara a confused look. 

“I know what Fox told us. I don't know if you've noticed, but he's not here right now. We’ve been at it for hours and we’re no closer to figuring out who the mole is then we were last week," McNamara clipped, slamming her hands against the round table. "Plus, I think they will have a unique understanding of the intricacies of the Doctor. I think _they know him.”_

Members of the team of profilers in front of her raised their eyebrows. Emily began to wonder if it was someone from her past in Interpol, Morgan filled through all the undercover cops he had come into contact with over the years. In fact, each member began to form their own mental lists of who the missing agent could be. Benny started typing frantically on the computer in front of him. Hotchner's attention was laser-focused now, eyes baring into McNamara, lips pressed together tightly.

“Agent McNamara, if there’s information that MI5 and the intelligence agencies have kept back to protect the field agents, we can work without it. We have several insights already, we just need more _time_.” Hotch said. McNamara quirked a dark eyebrow at him, readied herself to say something, but was cut off by the video streaming across the large screen in front of them.

Images of a cluttered room filled the screen. It was hard to make any distinction due to the shakey, poor quality camera work. Indistinct shouts and chatter filled the room. Abruptly a lanky form came crashing onto the screen, shoved violently to his knees. Hands tied roughly behind his back, sack covering the figures face. Blood-stained their dirty white t-shirt and dotted across his face covering. 

The figure swayed on the floor for a moment still reeling from the violent shove to their knees. Rough hands grabbed at them to steady their motion, shouting at the camera in a foreign language. Brutal hands snatched at the sack away, revealing the identity of the missing agent.

That second seemed to stretch out for far longer than it should. The air of the room flipped from the cool efficiency of working a case to complete shock. The team of profilers stomachs flipped. Ice rippled through the room, raising the hairs on the backs of their necks and catching their breaths suddenly. 

_Spencer._

_Their Spencer._

A wilder, rougher version of their Spencer. 

But him. 

_Alive._

The video showcased a wild-eyed, scraggly haired man. Stubble aged his face by a few years, matted hair hung lank around his shoulders. He looked a broken mess, bruises blooming across his face forming grotesque yellow and purple patchwork patterns.

Dried blood caked down from his scalp like rust. The worst came from his eyes, once bright with knowledge and curiosity, now cold and glassy. Dead.

A rough hand had anchored itself in his long, tangled hair forcing him to look directly down the camera. He was ragged, with a defiant glint in his eye as he looked at the person behind the camera. The team sat silenced by disbelief, faces ashen with shock. A cruel joke. A trick. Morgan had pushed himself out of his chair violently, letting it fall onto its side, the clatter deafening in the silent room. A knocked coffee cup pooled across the table. _He was alive._ How could he be alive?

Rightfully, anger, confusion and shock coloured the team of profilers as they watched their deceased friend look dead-eyed down the camera and list of the terrorist organisation's demands. His voice was the same. Oh god, JJ thought, it was actually his voice. She had heard him speak only in her dreams for years now, only now realising it was a poor impression of the real thing. 

Once the screen went blank, a thick silence glazed over the room. Wide eyes frantically flicked around, wildly trying to identify what was going on. Was this a sick joke? Was their friend still alive? Tears had begun to burn at Garcia’s eyes, spilling down her rose blushed cheeks. The silence in the room was filled with thousands upon thousands of unanswered questions. 

“ _How long?_ ” Penelope asked with tears spilling down her rose blushed cheeks and venom poisoning her tone. "How long have you know that our friend is out there - alive- and in danger? _How long have you known that and sat here with us?_ " 

Despite Penelope's sweet nature, the glint in her eye as she stared down McNamara and Benny told them that she was not someone to be messed with. Not when it came to her family. Benny turned to McNamara, confused at the situation that had unfolded before him. McNamara stood strong.

"About ten minutes - It didn't all click until I saw the photo hanging in your gallery," McNamara said, continuing to return Garcia's death stare. "We don't get to know about recruited agents past lives. All I knew was the doc was some genius kid from the US The less information that is passed through the system, the better for the agent."

The wheels were still spinning rapidly in the minds of the team. Spencer wasn't dead. Spencer was alive. Spencer was in trouble. Spencer wasn't dead. How was this true? They buried him. They had mourned him. His family had mourned him. Thoughts circled each of their minds. How could this be real? Something, however, in McNamara's solid resolve told them she was telling the truth, that she could be trusted. And that was the best that they could do right now. 

"Is he really still _alive_?" A small voice came in the form of JJ, sitting sheet white and deathly still in her seat. She sounded like a fragile child, seconds away from tears.

“We think so.” McNamara swallowed hard, cringing under the intense scrutiny of the shell-shocked team in front of her. “We received this video a few months ago but nothing since. The majority of our agents have gone underground so they may believe that we have pulled the mission."

"And there's still a chance that we can get him back? _Alive?_ " JJ asked again, a little steal sneaking into her voice.

"We need to hope so. I think that's the only way we're going to be able to stop whatever they have planned." McNamara said.

"Well. We better get to work." Rossi said as he began to scribble the words victimology on the evidence board. "What do we know about Reid?" He asked, finishing his handiwork on the board with a flourish.

"Doc was about to relay some information about YDK involvement at the lab he was stationed at. He went AWOL before he had the chance. I've got his last message to us here" Benny added in hopes of being helpful, pulling up a copy of Docs last text onto the screen for them to examine.

"So he'd successfully identified links to the YDK at the lab? That's the rat?" Emily asked, straining her eyes at the screen. "What's the part about watching out for dad about?

"We're not sure. I guessed it was just a habit to maybe include a message about his father when writing home?" McNamara interjected.

"Reid? Asking about his dad? out of habit?" Morgan asked, voice heavy with sarcasm as he looked at his teammates. "If he put it in that message it meant something."

"I agree. Was there a senior field agent? Someone Reid would possibly see as a father figure or mentor?" Hotch asked.

"Agents had as little information about each other as possible - for situations exactly like this. I doubt Doc had even encountered his other agents. He was on a very self-contained mission" McNamara answered.

"The only person he had any contact with really was me," Benny continued. 

"You're younger than him, less knowledgeable, lower in rank. I doubt he would be referring to you as a dad." Rossi interjected, adding a quick no offence at the end.

At that moment it all clicked for McNamara. The tension when the three of them had been told they were going to Quantico, the constant red tape around this mission, the lack of focus on finding Doc when he had gone missing originally Originally, she'd passed it off as extra precautions and stress. A commonality in an industry based upon trading secrets. A million little puzzle pieces began to click together forming the full picture in perfect clarity. She felt idiotic for not noticing the signs along the way.

" _It's Fox._ " She stated dumbly.

"Where?" Asked Benny, confused.

"No, the mole. _The fucking mole._ It's Fox."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapters probably going to be a little longer so may take a while longer than I've been spitting these ones out! 
> 
> Let me know what you think!


	7. Ragged Man

Everything ached. Muscles, bones, tendons. Exhaustion and pain overwhelmed his senses as he continued to drag himself through the busy medina. The tight stone corridors were packed with shoppers, tourists and vendors haggling over the price of silks and spices. The sweet, warm smell of paprika and a host of other unidentifiable spices was thick in the sweltering, humid air. As the ragged man reached the end of the maze-like corridor, opening out to a wider outdoor market place filled with stands of fresh produce, coffee stalls and food carts. The ragged man's stomach began to ache with hunger, physically taking his breath away. 

Bare feet stumbled wildly towards the smell, like a mindless zombie overwhelmed by hunger and exhaustion. As he staggered forward across the rough bricked pavement stones cut at the soles of his feet. His legs wobbled under his weight and his vision was beginning to blur. He'd been walking for so long. When had he last stopped to rest? or eat? He tried to remember the last time he had water - remember anything - but his mind was failing him rapidly. 

_ I can't carry on like this _ , he thought, as his knees finally bucked underneath him.

As he collapsed into a heap on the ground, passers-by looked with a vague curiosity as if examining a caged animal at a zoo. No one rushed over to help, in fact somewhere in his stupor he was vaguely aware of an American tourist clicking away on a digital camera. Capturing what they though were images of a beggar sleeping on the hard pavement in the beating sunlight. Around him, people still buzzed around going about their day. The footfall of people entering and exiting the souks continued to rush by. Nothing to see here. Rough sleepers and beggars were a common occurrence here. One of the highest prevalences in the world, he thought, as his mind went blank.

***

Eventually, his mind wandered back into consciousness. He couldn't tell how much time had passed since his body had shut down in the dusty corner of the medina. The smell of fried food - from one of the vendors, the ragged man presumed - filled his nostrils again, making hunger pains return with a vengeance in his stomach. A sound, a high pitched chirping, roused the man into finally opening his eyes.

His vision blurred at first, seeing only garbled colours and shapes. Eventually, his eyes began to focus on the vibrant market in front of him. More importantly on the small child who was giggling at him - that high pitched chirp - from his position a few meters away. The child was running between the half-conscious ragged man and a food stall, where a stern-looking older man was serving a customer. The young boy, he couldn't have been more than five years old, seemed to be trying to get as close to the ragged man without being noticed by the man at the stall.

The raggedy man observed the small child's game as he gradually acclimatised to the waking world. He worked out the child was carrying rolls from the older man's - his father? - bakery stall in his pudgy little hands. He looked at the baked good longingly.

Luck finally struck the ragged man after a few minutes of idly observing the child's sneaky game. Upon being caught by the scornful gaze of his father the child dropped his snack on the dirty floor, retreating away from the ragged man as his father yelled at him in Arabic. The bread roll sat mere inches away from the ragged man now. He could have cried tears of joy. Summoning all the strength he had left, the ragged man began to contort his scrawny body to reach out and grab the roll. 

He didn't eat but rather inhaled the bread. It was dense and his dry throat made it uncomfortable to swallow. In the back of his head, a small voice screamed about germs and the sanitary conditions of this meal. But he didn't care. Too ravenous. It was nowhere near enough, but, it was a start. Enough to get him back on his feet for now. Slowly, he rose from his position on the ground taking stock of his surroundings. It was cooler now and the crowds had begun to disperse a little, giving him a clearer view of the market in front of him. It was easier to think too, now that he had rested and had something to line his stomach. Water. That's what his body called for now. In the far corner, he spotted a water fountain, spurting a constant stream of water high in the air, filling the pool surrounding it. 

_ Bingo, _ the ragged man thought as he began towards it.

Once the fountain was reached, the ragged man dropped to his knees using his bare hands to drink the water. He drank for a long time, ignoring the looks from disgruntled tourists around him. It was one of the best things he'd ever tasted. Never mind fine wines or endless cups of coffee. This lukewarm fountain water was the best thing he had ever tasted. 

When he was done, the ragged man examined his shabby reflection in the pool. His long, matted hair hung down to his shoulders. Blood and dirt smattered his face, offset by deep bruises that had only just begun to fade at the edges. His skin on his forehead was burnt, his lips cracked with dehydration. His facial hair aged him a good few years, hiding the majority of his lower face. He could just see the beginnings of his tattered t-shirt in his reflection, ripped and dirty. He looked  _ wild.  _ No wonder no one approached him when he collapsed, he though. Even Spencer was off-put by his own appearance. Sinking back down to lean against the fountain, Spencer tried to figure out what to do next.

_ I need a plan,  _ he thought, _ and it better be a good one.  _ He had no money, nowhere to go and no one to help him. He wasn't 100% sure where he was, who he could trust and who was after him.

Think.

_ Think! _

His long fingers clawed at his tender face while he silently berated himself for a plan. If he wanted to be able to form a good plan, he mused, he was going to need a better meal first and then somewhere to rest that wasn't an open corer of the market. His mind was still reeling in slow, incohesive circles.  _ Step one _ , he decided,  _ food and shelter. _ And this would mean money. He desperately needed money. 

A plan snapped into place in his mind. 

Only a few months ago Spencer would have found pickpocketing strangers for cash a moral conundrum. But now he was in survival mode and didn't think twice about the act. It was surprising, however, how natural the act came to him. Maybe it was years of reading people as a profiler or all the time spent practising sleight of hand tricks in Colege. Whatever it was, it worked. 

Spencer waited until he saw a group of tourists distracted by a street performer before silently creeping behind them, lifting a wallet left dangling in one of their back pockets with a delicate flourish and lifted a rucksack that had been left unattended behind their back. Smoothly he slung it around his shoulder as he walked away at a steady pace, disappearing into the crowded streets without even turning back to look at the pack of tourists again. The act took less than a minute in total, with the gang none the wiser as Spencer completely disappeared.

He kept up the steady pace, ignoring the cries of pain from his bare feet as they slapped of the cobbled pavements he wandered down. It was getting into the late afternoon now, with throngs of people leaving works or returning back to their hotel as the markets began to shut. Mopeds and motorbikes whizzed passed haphazardly with two or three people balanced upon them, kicking up dust off the road and disbursing into the air as they went. Large crowds were forming at bus stops and fights from tourists kicked off about who's taxi was who's. 

Once he was sure he'd got away with his crime, Spencer slowed to a stop and sat on a vacant bench. Taking stock of his haul, Spencer formed a small inventory. A wad of Durhams, and about two hundred and fifty US dollars stuffed in the wallet along with credit and various ID cards. A few hundred more in the backpack, a digital camera, phone and to Spencer's delight, a handful of protein bars and an unopened bottle of water. The sight brought tears of joy to his eyes.

After unwrapping and greedily consuming one of the protein bars, Spencer's mind swam back to a more functional level of clarity. He needed to get off the streets and quick. He should probably change his appearance. And quick. He looked around, trying to get a bearing on his location. His eye scanned the Arabic of the road signs working out a rough location and solidifying a plan in his mind.  _ He could do this.  _

***

Later that evening - after having brashly raided a supermarket for supplies and checked himself into a private room in a budget hostel - Spencer stared down his now slightly improved reflection. In the dim orange light provided by the naked bulb in his room, Spencer thought he had made quite the transition from a ragged hermit to a slightly bashed young man. His shoulder-length hair had been hacked down sit jaggedly at his jawline, facial hair completely removed. His entire body had been scrubbed clean, all traces of blood and dirt removed. The dismal water pressure and lukewarm temperature of the communal shower had felt like the height of luxury after the last few months of his life. 

_ I look like myself again _ , he thought, with a joyous pang. It had been so long since he had felt like him. Like Spencer Reid. For months now he had been stripped of his own identity, first embodying his alias and then once that was betrayed, embodying nothing. His captors had only ever referred to him as the snake, the traitor, the spy. He hadn't been Spencer in about two years now.

Having dealt with the pressing issues of finally getting some rest, some food and off the streets, Spencer had to face the bigger issues. How was he going to get out of this mess?

Who could he trust? Was there anyone? Someone had betrayed him and he had a good idea who it was.

Fox.

It was too convenient. Far too convenient. Everything had started to go wrong just as he had found out Fox had a meeting with a senior manager at the lab. Did this mean Benny and McNamara were compromised too? Where did that leave him?

Turning the stolen cell in his palm, he briefly considered the team. Hotch... Morgan... JJ... No. He had been dead for two years now. How do you just call someone after that? He could imagine the conversation in his head.

_ Hi Hotch ... No sorry I'm not actually dead...Yeah, also I am stranded in the middle of Morocco with a whole terrorist cell on the lookout for me, betrayed by the agency I was working for ... Oh yeah? and they're also planning something big for you guys over there but I can't say too much because they're probably listening in!... Anyways, hows Jack? _

And what is he was able to convince them he was on the other line? There was always the chance that someone was listening. Working in the intelligence industry had opened his eyes to the wealth of ways the privacy of everyday citizens was invaded. How could he ask for help without giving himself away? It would have to be a very coded message. Would a member of the team be able to work out what he meant?

A smirk formed on his lips as he finally decided who to call. His fingers quickly dialled the sequence of numbers. As the phone began to ring out, he said a silent prayer that she hadn't changed her number in the last two years.


End file.
